Iron Gold

By Pierce Brown

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the epic next chapter of the Red Rising Saga, the #1 bestselling author of Morning Star pushes the boundaries of one of the boldest series in fiction.

“Mature science fiction existing within the frame of blazing space opera . . .  done in a style [that] borders on Shakespearean.”—NPR (One of the Best Books of the Year)

They call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-third of his life.
 
A decade ago Darrow was the hero of the revolution he believed would break the chains of the Society. But the Rising has shattered everything: Instead of peace and freedom, it has brought endless war. Now he must risk all he has fought for on one last desperate mission. Darrow still believes he can save everyone, but can he save himself?
                 
And throughout the worlds, other destinies entwine with Darrow’s to change his fate forever: 
                 
A young Red girl flees tragedy in her refugee camp, and achieves for herself a new life she could never have imagined.
                 
An ex-soldier broken by grief is forced to steal the most valuable thing in the galaxy—or pay with his life.
                 
And Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile to the Sovereign, wanders the stars with his mentor, Cassius, haunted by the loss of the world that Darrow transformed, and dreaming of what will rise from its ashes.
                 
Red Rising was the story of the end of one universe. Iron Gold is the story of the creation of a new one. Witness the beginning of a stunning new saga of tragedy and triumph from masterly New York Times bestselling author Pierce Brown.

Don’t miss any of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga:
RED RISING • GOLDEN SON • MORNING STAR • IRON GOLD • DARK AGE • LIGHT BRINGER

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Worlds
• Release date: Jan 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780425285923

Book preview

Dramatis Personae

REDS

DARROW OF LYKOS/THE REAPER ArchImperator of the Republic, husband to Virginia

RHONNA Niece of Darrow

LYRIA OF LAGALOS A Gamma Red

DANCER, SENATOR O’FARAN Senator of the Republic, Ares lieutenant

DANO Colleague of Ephraim

GOLDS

VIRGINIA AU AUGUSTUS/MUSTANG Reigning Sovereign of the Republic, wife to Darrow, mother to Pax

PAX Son of Darrow and Virginia

MAGNUS AU GRIMMUS/THE ASH LORD Former ArchImperator to Octavia

ATALANTIA AU GRIMMUS Daughter of the Ash Lord

CASSIUS AU BELLONA Former Morning Knight, guardian to Lysander

LYSANDER AU LUNE Grandson of former Sovereign Octavia, heir to House Lune

SEVRO AU BARCA/THE GOBLIN Howler, husband to Victra

VICTRA AU BARCA Wife to Sevro, née Victra au Julii

ELECTRA AU BARCA Daughter of Sevro and Victra

KAVAX AU TELEMANUS Head of House Telemanus, father to Daxo

NIOBE AU TELEMANUS Wife to Kavax

DAXO AU TELEMANUS Heir and son of Kavax

THRAXA AU TELEMANUS Daughter of Kavax and Niobe

ROMULUS AU RAA Head of House Raa, Lord of the Dust, Sovereign of the Rim Dominion

DIDO AU RAA Wife to Romulus, née Dido au Saud

SERAPHINA AU RAA Daughter of Romulus and Dido

DIOMEDES AU RAA/THE STORM KNIGHT Son of Romulus and Dido

MARIUS AU RAA Quaestor, son of Romulus and Dido

APOLLONIUS AU VALII-RATH/THE MINOTAUR Heir to House Valii-Rath

THARSUS AU VALII-RATH Brother to Apollonius

ALEXANDAR AU ARCOS Eldest grandson of Lorn

VANDROS a Howler

CLOWN a Howler

PEBBLE a Howler

OTHER COLORS

HOLIDAY TI NAKAMURA Legionnaire, sister to Trigg, a Gray

EPHRAIM TI HORN Freelancer, former Son of Ares

SEFI Queen of the Valkyrie, sister to Ragnar, an Obsidian

WULFGAR THE WHITETOOTH ArchWarden of the Republic, an Obsidian

VOLGA FJORGAN Colleague of Ephraim, an Obsidian

QUICKSILVER/REGULUS AG SUN Richest man in the Republic, a Silver

PYTHA Blue pilot, companion to Cassius and Lysander

CYRA SI LAMENSIS Locksmith, colleague of Ephraim, a Green

PUBLIUS CU CARAVAL The Copper Tribune, leader of the Copper bloc, a Copper

MICKEY Carver, a Violet

The Fall of Mercury

THE FURY

SILENT, SHE WAITS FOR the sky to fall, standing upon an island of volcanic rock amidst a black sea. The long moonless night yawns before her. The only sounds, a flapping banner of war held in her lover’s hand and the warm waves that kiss her steel boots. Her heart is heavy. Her spirit wild. Peerless knights tower behind her. Salt spray beads on their family crests—emerald centaurs, screaming eagles, gold sphinxes, and the crowned skull of her father’s grim house. Her Golden eyes look to the heavens. Waiting. The water heaves in. Out. The heartbeat of her silence.

THE CITY

Tyche, the jewel of Mercury, hunches in fear between the mountains and the sun. Her famed glass and limestone spires are dark. The Ancestor Bridge is empty. Here, Lorn au Arcos wept as a young man when he saw the messenger planet at sunset for the first time. Now, trash rolls through her streets, pushed by salty summer wind. Gone are the calls of the fishmongers at the wharf. Gone are the patter of pedestrian feet on the cobbles and the rumble of aircars and the laughter of the lowColor children who jump from the bridges into the waves on scorching summer days when the Trasmian sea winds are still. The city is quiet, its wealthy already gone to desert mountain retreats or government bunkers, its soldiers on its rooftops watching the sky, its poor having left for the desert or upon cramped boats destined for the Ismere Islands.

But the city is not empty.

Huddled masses fill the public transit systems that wend beneath the waves. And in the upstairs window of a tenement complex on the ugly fringes of the city, far from the water, where the working poor are kept, a little girl with Orange eyes fogs the window with her breath. The night sky sparks. Flashing and flaring with spurts of light like the fireworks her brother sometimes buys at the corner shop. She’s been told there is a battle between big fleets high up there. She has never seen a starship. Her mother lies sick in the bedroom, unable to travel. Her father, who builds parts for engines, sits at the little plastic dinner table with his sons, knowing he cannot protect them. The holoCan washes them in pale light. Government news programs tell them to seek shelter. In her pocket the girl carries a folded piece of paper that she found in the gutter. On it is a little curved sword. She’s seen it before on the cube. Her teachers at the government school say it brings chaos. War. It has set the spheres on fire. But now she secretly draws the blade in the fog her breath has made on the window, and she feels brave.

Then the bombs begin to fall.

THE BOMBS

They come from high-orbit Thor-class bombers piloted by farmboys from Earth and miners from Mars of the Twelfth Sunshine Squadron. Curses and prayers and tribal dragons and curved scythes have been sprayed upon them in aerosol paint. They dip through the clouds and fall over the sea, outracing their own sound. Their guidance chips are made by freeColors on Phobos. Their steel is mined and smelted by entrepreneurs in the Belt. Their ion propulsion engines are stamped with the winged heel of a company that makes consumer electronics and toiletries and weapons. Down and down they go to race shadowless over the desert, then the sea, carrying the weight of the newest empire under the sun.

The first bomb destroys the Hall of Justice on Tyche’s Vespasian Island. Then it burrows a hundred meters into the earth before detonating against the bunker buried there, killing all inside. The second lands in the sea, fifteen kilometers from a fleet of refugees, where it sinks a Society warship, hiding under the chop. The third races over a spine of mountains north of Tyche when it is struck with a railgun round fired from a defense installation by a Gray teenager with acne scars and the charm of a sweetheart around his neck. It careens off its course and sputters across the sky before falling to the earth.

It detonates on the fringes of the city, far from the water, where it turns four blocks of tenement housing to dust.

THE REAPER

Silent, he lies encased in mankilling metal in the belly of a starship called the Morning Star. The fear swallows him now as it has done time and time before. The only sound is the whir of his armor’s air filtration unit and the radio chatter of distant men and women. Around him lie his friends, they too cocooned in metal. Waiting. Eyes Red and Gold and Gray and Obsidian. Wolfheads mark their pauldrons. Tattoos their necks and arms. Wild empire breakers from Mars and Luna and Earth. Beyond them fly ships with names like Spirit of Lykos, Hope of Tinos, and Echo of Ragnar. They are painted white and led by a woman with onyx-dark skin. The Lion Sovereign said the white was for spring. For a new beginning. But the ships are stained. Smeared with char and patched wounds and mismatched panels. They broke the Sword Armada and the martyr Fabii. They conquered the heart of the Gold empire. They battled back the Ash Lord to the Core and have kept the dragons of the Rim at bay.

How could they ever stay clean?

Alone in his armor, waiting to fall from the sky, he remembers the girl who began it all. He remembers how her Red hair fell over her eyes. How her mouth danced with laughter. How she breathed as she lay atop him, so warm and fragile in a world far too cold. She has been dead longer than she was ever alive. And now that her dream has spread, he wonders if she would recognize it. And he wonders too if he were to die today, would he recognize the echo of his own life? What sort of man would his son become in this world he has made? He thinks of his son’s face and how soon he will become a man. And he thinks of his Golden wife. How she stood on the landing pad, looking up at him, wondering if he’d ever return home again.

More than anything, he wants this to end.

Then the machine takes hold.

He feels the tug on his body. The pounding of his heart. The mad cackling of the Goblin and the howls of his friends as they try to forget their children, their loves, and be brave. Nausea in his gut rises as the magnetic rails charge behind him. With a shudder of metal, they fire him forward through the launch tube out into silent space at six times the speed of sound.

Men call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy.

It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-third of his life.

Part I Wind

There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,

Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel,

Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,

And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,

Till the vast Temple of our liberties

A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.

—HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

1 Darrow Hero of the Republic

WEARY, I WALK UPON FLOWERS at the head of an army. Petals carpet the last of the stone road before me. Thrown by children from windows, they twirl lazily down from the steel towers that grow to either side of the Luna boulevard. In the sky, the sun dies its slow, weeklong death, staining the tattered clouds and gathered crowd in bloody hues. Waves of humanity lap against security barricades, pressing inward on our parade as Hyperion City Watchmen in gray uniforms and cyan berets guard the route, shoving drunken revelers back into the crowd. Behind them, antiterrorism units prowl up and down the pavement, their fly-eyed goggles scanning irises, hands resting on energy weapons.

My own eyes rove the crowd.

After ten years of war, I no longer believe in moments of peace.

It’s a sea of Colors that line the twelve-kilometer Via Triumphia. Built by my people, the Red slaves of the Golds, hundreds of years ago, the Triumphia is the avenue by which the Conquerors who tamed Earth held their own processions as they claimed continent after continent. Iron-spined murderers with eyes of gold and haughty menace once consecrated these same stones. Now, nearly a millennium later, we sully the Triumphia’s sacred white marble by honoring Liberators with eyes of jet and ash and rust and soil.

Once, this would have filled me with pride. Jubilant crowds celebrating the Free Legions returned from vanquishing yet another threat to our fledgling Republic. But today I see holosigns of my head with a bloody crown atop it, hear the jeers from the Vox Populi as they wave banners emblazoned with their upside-down pyramid, and feel nothing but the weight of an endless war and a desperate longing to be once again in the embrace of my family. It has been a year since I’ve seen my wife and son. After the long voyage back from Mercury, all I want is to be with them, to fall into a bed, and to sleep for a dreamless month.

The last of my journey home lies before me. As the Triumphia widens and abuts the stairs that lead up to the New Forum, I face one final summit.

Faces drunk on jubilation and new commercial spirits gape up at me as I reach the stairs. Hands sticky with sweets wave in the air. And tongues, loose from those same commercial spirits and delights, cry out, shouting my name, or cursing it. Not the name my mother gave me, but the name my deeds have built. The name the fallen Peerless Scarred now whisper as a curse.

Reaper, Reaper, Reaper, they cry, not in unison, but in frenzy. The clamor suffocates, squeezing with a billion-fingered hand: all the hopes, all the dreams, all the pain constricting around me. But so close to the end, I can put one foot after the other. I begin to climb the stairs.

Clunk.

My metal boots grind on stone with the weight of loss: Eo, Ragnar, Fitchner, and all the others who’ve fought and fallen at my side while somehow I have remained alive.

I am tall and broad. Thicker at my age of thirty-three than I was in my youth. Stronger and more brutal in my build and movement. Born Red, made Gold, I have kept what Mickey the Carver gave me. These Gold eyes and hair feel more my own than those of that boy who lived in the mines of Lykos. That boy grew, loved, and dug the earth, but he lost so much it often feels like it happened to another soul.

Clunk. Another step.

Sometimes I fear that this war is killing that boy inside. I ache to remember him, his raw, pure heart. To forget this city moon, this Solar War, and return to the bosom of the planet that gave birth to me before the boy inside is dead forever. Before my son loses the chance to ever know him. But the worlds, it seems, have plans of their own.

Clunk.

I feel the weight of the chaos I’ve unleashed: famines and genocide on Mars, Obsidian piracy in the Belt, terrorism, radiation sickness and disease spreading through the lower reaches of Luna, and the two hundred million lives lost in my war.

I force a smile. Today is our fourth Liberation Day. After two years of siege, Mercury has joined the free worlds of Luna, Earth, and Mars. Bars stand open. War-weary citizens rove the streets, looking for reason to celebrate. Fireworks crackle and blaze across the sky, shot from the roofs of skyscraper and tenement complex alike.

With our victory on the first planet from the sun, the Ash Lord has been pushed back to his last bastion, the fortress planet Venus, where his battered fleet guards precious docks and the remaining loyalists. I have come home to convince the Senate to requisition ships and men of the war-impoverished Republic for one final campaign. One last push on Venus to put this bloodydamn war to rest. So I can set down the sword and go home to my family for good.

Clunk.

I take a moment to glance behind me. Waiting at the foot of the stairs is my Seventh Legion, or the remnants of it. Twenty-eight thousand men and women where once there were fifty. They stand in casual order around a fourteen-pointed ivory star with a pegasus galloping at its center—held aloft by the famous Thraxa au Telemanus. The Hammer. After losing her left arm to Atalantia au Grimmus’s razor, she had it replaced by a metal prototype appendage from Sun Industries. Wild gold hair flutters behind her head, garlanded with white feathers given to her by Obsidian admirers.

In her mid-thirties, a stout woman with thighs thick as water drums and a freckled, bluff face. She grins past the shoulders of the Obsidians and Golds around her. Blue and Red and Orange pilots wave to the crowd. Red, Gray, and Brown infantry smile and laugh as pretty young Pinks and Reds duck under barriers and rush to drape necklaces of flowers around their necks, push bottles of liquor into their hands and kisses onto their mouths. They are the only full legion in today’s parade. The rest remain on Mercury with Orion and Harnassus, battling with the Ash Lord’s legions stranded there when his fleet retreated.

Clunk.

Remember, you are but mortal, Sevro’s bored voice drawls in my ear as white-haired Wulfgar and the Republic Wardens descend to greet us midway up the Forum stairs. Sevro sniffs my neck and makes a noise of distaste. By Jove. You wretch. Did you dip yourself in piss before the occasion?

It’s cologne, I say. Mustang bought it for me last Solstice.

He’s quiet for a moment. Is it made out of piss?

I scowl back at him, wrinkling my nose at the heaviness of liquor on his breath, and eye the ragged wolfcloak he wears over his ceremonial armor. He claims he hasn’t washed it since the Institute. You’re really lecturing me about stenches? Just shut up and behave like an Imperator, I say with a grin.

Snorting, Sevro drops back to where the legendary Obsidian, Sefi Volarus, stands in her customary silence. He feigns an air of domesticity, but next to the giant woman, he looks a little like some sort of gutter dog an alcoholic father might ill-advisedly bring home to play with the children—washed and rid of fleas, but still possessing that weird mania behind the eyes. Pinched, thin lipped, with a nose crooked as an old knifefighter’s fingers. He eyes the crowd with resigned distaste.

Behind him lope the pack of mangy Howlers he brought with us to Mercury. My bodyguards, now drunk as gallants at a Lykos Laureltide. Stalwart Holiday walks at their center, the snub-nosed woman doing her best to keep them in line.

There used to be more of them. So many more.

I smile as Wulfgar descends the stairs to meet me. A favorite son of the Rising, the Obsidian is a tree root of a man, gnarled and narrow, armored all in pale blue. He’s in his early forties. His face angular as a raptor’s, his beard braided like that of his hero, Ragnar.

One of the Obsidians to fight alongside Ragnar at the walls of Agea, Wulfgar was with the Sons of Ares that freed me from the Jackal in Attica. Now ArchWarden of the Republic, he smiles down at me from the step above, his black eyes crinkling at the corners.

Hail libertas, I say with a smile.

Hail libertas, he echoes.

Wulfgar. Fancy meeting you here. You missed the Rain, I say.

You did not wait for me to return, did you? Wulfgar clucks his tongue. My children will ask where I was when the Rain fell upon Mercury, and you know what I will have to tell them? He leans forward with a conspiratorial smile. I was making night soil, wiping my ass when I heard Barca had taken Mount Caloris. He rumbles out a laugh.

I told you not to leave, Sevro says. You’d miss out on all the fun, I said. You should have seen the Ashies route. Trails of piss all the way to Venus. You’d have loved it. Sevro grins at the Obsidian. It was Sevro who put a razor in his hand in the river mud of Agea. Wulfgar has his own razor now. Its hilt made from the fang of an ice dragon from Earth’s South Pole.

My blade would have sung that day were I not summoned by the Senate, he says.

Sevro sneers. That’s right. You ran home like a good little dog.

A dog? I am a servant of the People, my friend. As are we all. His eyes find me with mild accusation and I understand the true meaning to his words. Wulfgar is a believer, like all Wardens. Not in me, but in the Republic, in the principles for which it stands, and the orders that the Senate gives. Two days before the Iron Rain over Mercury, the Senate, led by my old friend Dancer, voted against my proposal. They told me to maintain the siege. To not waste men, resources, on an assault.

I disobeyed and let the Rain fall.

Now a million of my men lie in the sands of Mercury and we have our Liberation Day.

Were Wulfgar with me on Mercury, he would not have joined our Rain against the Senate’s permission. In fact, he might have tried to stop me. He’s one of the few men alive who might manage. For a spell at least.

He spares a nod for Sefi. Njar ga hae, svester. A rough translation is Respect to you, sister in nagal.

Njar ga hir, bruder, she replies. No love lost between them. They have different priorities.

Your weapons. Wulfgar gestures to my razor.

Sefi and I hand his Wardens our weapons. Muttering under his breath, Sevro hands over his as well. Did you forget your toothpick? Wulfgar asks, looking at Sevro’s left boot.

Treasonous yeti, Sevro mutters, and pulls a wicked blade long as a baby’s body from his boot. The Warden who takes it looks terrified.

Odin’s fortune with the togas, Darrow, Wulfgar says to me as he motions for us to continue upward. You will need it.

Arrayed at the top of the steps of the New Forum are the 140 Senators of the Republic. Ten per Color, all draped in white togas that flutter in the breeze. They peer down at me like a row of haughty pigeons on a wire. Red and Gold, mortal enemies in the Senate, bookend the row to either side. Dancer is missing. But I have eyes only for the lonely bird of prey that stands at the center of all the silly, vain, power-hungry little pigeons.

Her golden hair is bound tight behind her head. Her tunic is pure white, without the ribbons of their Color the others wear. And in her hand, she carries the Dawn Scepter—now a multi-hued gold baton half a meter long, with the pyramid of the Society recast into the fourteen-pointed star of the Republic at its tip. Her face is elegant and distant. A small nose, piercing eyes behind thick eyelashes, and a mischievous cat’s smile growing on her face. The Sovereign of our Republic. Here at the summit of the stairs, her eyes shed the weight from my shoulders, the fear from my heart that I would never see her again. Through war and space and this damnable parade, I have traveled to find her again, my life, my love, my home.

I bend to my knee and look up into the eyes of the mother of my child.

’Lo, wife, I say with a smile.

’Lo, husband. Welcome home.

2 Darrow Father

SILENE MANOR, THE SOVEREIGN’S traditional Luna country retreat, is nestled five hundred kilometers north of Hyperion at the base of the Atlas Mountains on a small lake. The northern hemisphere of the moon, comprised of mountains and seas, is less populous than the belt of cities that girdle the equator. Though Mustang governs from the Palace of Light in the Citadel, Silene is the true home of my family, at least until we return to Mars. Built to resemble one of the papal villas on Earth’s Lake Como, the stone house sits along the edge of a rocky cove, and spills down to the lake by means of switchbacked stairs cut into the rock.

Here the thin conifers whisper to heights four times those possible on Earth. They sway nearly two hundred meters in the air around the raised concrete landing pad where the steward of House Augustus, Cedric cu Platuu, waits with my wife’s Lionguards as our shuttle lands. The small Copper greets Sevro and me with great alacrity, bowing deeply and flourishing his hand. Thraxa runs past him without even a greeting, eager to find her mother.

ArchImperator, he gushes, plump cheeks flushing with delight. He’s a short but ample man, built a bit like a plum with knobby arms and legs added as an afterthought. A whisper of a mustache, nearly as thin as the graying copper hair upon his head, wavers in the wind. What gladness to see you again!

Cedric, I say, greeting the short man warmly. I hear you’ve just had a birthday.

Yes, my lord! My seventy-first. Though I do maintain one should stop counting after sixty.

Prime work, Sevro says. You look positively prepubescent.

Thank you, my lord!

Few know the secrets of the Citadel as well as Cedric; he was one of the gems of the Sovereign’s court. Mustang, having thought highly of him during her time with Octavia, saw no need to dismiss a man so knowledgeable and dedicated to his duty.

Where’s the welcoming party? Sevro asks, looking for his wife, Victra. Mustang and Daxo remained behind in Hyperion to deal with their unruly Senate, but promised to rejoin by dinnertime.

Oh, the children are recently returned from a three-day adventure, Cedric says. "The Lady Telemanus took them to the ruins of the USS Davy Crockett in the Atlas Mountains. Merrywater’s own! I hear they had quite a time around that old wreck. Quite. A. Time, yes. Learned many lessons and expanded their individual initiative. As your curriculum requested, dominu— Cedric’s eyes nearly pop out of his head before he corrects himself. As your curriculum requested, sir."

Is my wife here yet? Sevro asks gruffly.

Not yet, sir. Her valet said she would be late to dinner. I believe there were labor strikes in her warehouses in Endymion and Echo City. It’s all over the holoNews.

She didn’t even show to the Triumph, Sevro mutters. I looked fabulous.

She has missed you at your most prime, sir.

Right. See, Darrow? Cedric agrees. What he hasn’t noticed is Cedric shuffling away from the odious stench of his wolfcloak.

Cedric, where is my son? I ask the man.

He smiles. I think you can guess, sir.

—

The sounds of neoPlast swords knocking together and boots on stone greet Sevro and me as we enter the dueling grotto. There, vines crawl over granite fountains and along the damp stone floor. Evergreen needles drift in cumulous shapes from the top of the trees. And in the center of the grotto, under the watching eyes of the gargoyles adorning the fountains, a young boy and girl circle each other at the center of a chalk circle. The seven other children of their pack watch on, along with two Gold women. Sevro pulls me to the side so we remain unseen and sit out of sight on the edge of a granite fountain to watch.

The boy at the center of the circle is ten, lean and proud. He laughs like his mother and broods like his father. His hair is the color of straw, his face round and flushed with youth. Rose-gold eyes burn from under long lashes. He’s larger than I remember, older, and it feels so impossible that he could have come from me. That he could have thoughts of his own. That he’ll love, smile, die like the rest of us.

His brow is furrowed now in concentration. Sweat pours down his face, matting his hair as his opponent strikes his knee a glancing blow.

The girl is nine and narrow-faced like a sleek hunting dog. Electra, the eldest of Sevro’s three daughters, is taller than my son and twice as thin. But while Pax radiates an inner joy that makes adults’ eyes twinkle, there’s a deep grimness to the girl. Her eyes are dusky gold and hidden behind heavy lids. Sometimes when they look at me, I feel them judging with an aloofness that reminds me of her mother.

Sevro leans forward eagerly. I’ll wager Aja’s razor against Apollonius’s helm that my wee monster beats the piss out of your boy.

I’m not going to bet on our children, I whisper in indignation.

I’ll throw Aja’s Institute ring in as well.

Have some decency, Sevro. They’re our children.

And Octavia’s cape.

I want the Falthe Ivory Tree.

Sevro gasps. I love the Ivory Tree. Where else will I hang my trophies?

I shrug. No Ivory Tree, no bet.

Bloodydamn savage, he says, sticking out a hand to shake. You have a deal. Sevro’s become quite the collector—acquiring a hoard of trophies from Gold Imperators, knights, and would-be kings. He hangs their rings and weapons and crests from the boughs of the ivory tree he uprooted from the House Falthe compound on Earth and moved to his home on Luna.

We watch as Electra redoubles her onslaught against Pax. My son continues to back away, to sidestep, allowing her to overextend. Once she does, he twirls his plastic razor toward her rib cage. It connects lightly. Point! he shouts.

I’m counting, Pax. Not you, Niobe au Telemanus says. Kavax’s wife is a serene woman with a bird’s nest of untamable graying hair and skin the color of cherrywood. The tribal tattoos of her Pacific Islander ancestors cover her arms. Three to two, for Pax.

Mind your balance, and stop overextending, Electra, says Thraxa. You’ll lose your footing if you’re on an unstable surface, like a ship deck or ice. She sits on the edge of a fountain, miraculously already having found a bottle of beer.

Brow furrowed in anger, Electra rushes Pax again. They move fast for children, but since they’re still shy of puberty, their movements are not yet graceful. Electra feints high, then twists her wrist to slash savagely down, hitting Pax’s shoulder. Point for Electra, Niobe says. Sevro has to stop himself from clapping. Pax tries to recover, but Electra is on him. Three more quick blows knock his razor from his hand. He falls down and Electra lifts her razor to smash him hard on the head.

Thraxa slips forward and catches the blade mid-swing with her metal hand. Temper, temper, little lady. She pours a little beer on her head.

Electra glares up at her.

Sevro can’t contain himself any longer. My little harpy! He lunges up off the bench and I follow through to the grotto. Daddy’s home! A smile slashes across Electra’s dour face as she turns to see her father. She runs to him and lets him scoop her up off the ground. Looks rather like he’s hugging a limp fish. Some of the children flinch back when they see Sevro. And when they see me emerge from behind the vines, they stiffen and bow with perfect manners. Not one born since the fall of House Lune has the sigils implanted on their hands.

We raise them in packs of nine now, setting children of disparate Colors together early in their schooling with hopes of creating the bonds that I found at the Institute, but without the murder and starvation. Pax’s best friend, Baldur, a quiet gap-toothed Obsidian boy who is already nearly as tall as Sevro, helps Pax up. He tries to dust Pax off before Pax shoos him away and looks over at us.

I expected him to rush to me like Electra, but he doesn’t. And in that moment, a very sharp spasm of pain goes through the deeper part of me. When I left him, he was a boy, brimming with reckless life, but the hesitation, the coldness in him now, is from the world of men. Minding his pack, he walks forward very calmly and bows at the waist, no deeper than manners require. Hello, Father.

My boy, I say with a smile. You’ve grown like a weed.

That’s what happens when you age, he says, an edge to his words. I always thought when I became a man, I’d feel more confident, but towering over this boy, I feel so very small. I lost my own father to a cause; have I doomed Pax to the same fate?

—

He’s not generally such a snot, Niobe says later as we stand to the side after the children are dismissed from the day’s practice. Pax leaves quickly and in a mood. Baldur rushes to keep up.

Take the angst as a compliment, Darrow, Thraxa mumbles. He just misses his father. I felt the same way anytime the old man was away on one of Augustus’s errands. She pulls a slim burner from her pocket and lights it in the coals of one of the copper braziers that line the crumbling walls of the grotto. Niobe plucks it from her fingers and puts it out on her daughter’s metal arm.

Was Daxo ever like that? I ask.

Daxo? Niobe laughs. Daxo was born stoic as a stone.

Plotting in the womb from conception, Thraxa mutters, and sips her beer. We used to make owl hoots at him. Always watching the rest of us out the window. Big brother never wanted to play our games. Only his own.

And you were such a paragon? Niobe asks. You used to eat cow pies.

Thraxa shrugs. Better than your cooking. She steps out of range of her mother’s reach and lights a replacement burner. Thank Jove we had Browns.

Niobe rolls her eyes and touches my arm. The miscreant is right, Darrow. Pax just missed you. You’ve time to make up.

I smile at her but watch Sevro walking away toward the water with Electra. You know you’re Daddy’s favorite, don’t you? he’s saying to her. I fight back my jealousy. He always seems able to pick right back up where he left off with his family. I wish I had that same gift.

—

I seek my mother out in the garden that runs along the side of one of the stone storage sheds. She’s hunched in the black dirt with two other Red servant women and a Red man, her bare feet sticking out behind her as she plants bulbs in the ground in tidy rows. I pause a moment at the edge of the garden to watch her, just as I used to watch from the stairwell in our little home in Lykos as she made her night tea. I was afraid of her after Father died. She was always quick with a swat or a barbed word. I thought I deserved the treatment. How much easier the love between us would have been if I’d known as a child that her anger and my fear came from a pain neither one of us deserved. The love in me wells up for her as I remember what she’s endured, and for a brief flicker, I ache to see my father again. For him to see my mother free.

Are you just going to watch like a wastrel or are you going to help us plant? she asks without looking up.

I’m not sure I’d be a good farmer, I say.

She stands with the help of one of her companions, dusts the dirt from her pants, and takes her time setting her tools away before coming to say hello. She’s only eighteen years older than I am, but she wears the years hard. Still, she is stronger by leagues than when she lived below. Her joints are worn from years in the mines. But her cheeks are ruddy with life now. Our physicians have helped relieve most of the symptoms of the stroke and heart condition that ravaged her. I know she feels guilty for this life. This luxury, when my father and so many others wait for us in the Vale. Her work in the garden and on the grounds is a penance for surviving.

My mother gives me a hard hug. My son. She breathes me in before pulling back to look all the way up to my face. You put the death in me when I heard of that damn Iron Rain. You put the death in all of us.

I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have told you before that I was unaccounted for.

She nods and says nothing, and I realize how deep her worry went. How they must have huddled in the living room here or in the Citadel and listened to the holoNews just like everyone else. The Red man shuffles to join us, his bad leg dragging behind.

’Lo, Dancer, I say past my mother. My old mentor wears laborer’s garments instead of his senatorial robes. His hair is gray, his face fatherly and creased from hard years. But there’s still mischief in his rebel eyes. Given up the Senate for gardening, have you?

I’m a man of the people, he says with a shrug. Good to have dirt under the nails again. The gardeners in that museum the Senate gave me won’t let me touch a damn weed. ’Lo, Sevro.

Politician, Sevro says, joining me from behind. Heedless of the mood, he pretends like he’s going to scoop my mother up into the air, but she scowls at him and he turns the scoop into a gentle hug.

Better, she says. You nearly broke my hip the last time.

Oh, don’t be such a Pixie, he mutters.

Say that again?

He steps back. Nothing, ma’am.

What word from Leanna? I ask.

They’re well. Was hoping to visit them soon. Maybe take Pax along to Icaria in the winter. This place gets too cold for these old bones.

All the way to Mars? I ask.

It’s his home, she says sharply. You want him to forget where he came from? Red’s as deep in his blood as Gold. Not that he’s ever reminded it, ’cept by me.

Dancer looks away, as if to give us privacy.

He’ll go to Mars, I say. We all will when it’s safe.

We might control Mars, but that’s a far cry from it being a world of harmony. The Sirenian continent is still infested by a Gold army of iron-skinned veterans, just like the battleground of South Pacifica on Earth. The Ash Lord hasn’t risked putting a major fleet in orbit in years, but ground wars are decidedly more stubborn than their astral counterparts.

And when will it be safe, according to you? my mother asks.

Soon.

Neither Dancer nor my mother is impressed by that answer. And how long are you staying here? she asks.

A month, at least. Rhonna and Kieran will be coming, like you asked.

About bloody time. Thought Mercury had stolen them.

Victra and the girls will come up for a spell too. Though I do have business in Hyperion at the end of the week.

With the Senate. Asking for more men. Her tone’s as sour as her eyes.

I sigh and look at Dancer. Infecting my mother with your politics now?

He laughs. Deanna most certainly has a mind of her own.

With both of you in my ears I’ll go deaf, she says.

Plug your ears, Sevro replies. It’s what I do when they jabber about politics.

Dancer snorts. If only your wife did the same.

Careful, boyo. She’s got ears everywhere. She could be listening now.

Why weren’t you at the Triumph? I ask Dancer.

He grimaces. Please. We both know I’ve got no stomach for pomp. Especially on this damn moon. Give me dirt and air and friends. He looks fondly at the trees around. A shadow passes over his face at the thought of returning to Hyperion. But I must be heading back to the mechanized Babylon. Deanna, thank you for letting me garden with you. It’s just what I needed.

You’re not staying for supper? my mother asks.

Unfortunately, there are other gardens that need tending. Speaking of which…Darrow, could I have a moment?

—

Dancer and I leave my mother and Sevro bickering about the smell of his wolfcloak to walk along a dirt footpath leading into the trees toward the lake. A patrol skiff skims the water on the far shore. How are you? he asks me. None of that patriotic hero shit. Remember, I know all your tells.

Tired, I admit. You’d think a month’s journey back would let me catch up on sleep. But there’s always something.

"Can you sleep?" he asks.

Sometimes.

Lucky bastard. I piss the bed, he admits. Probably twice a month. I don’t ever remember the bloodydamn dreams, but my body sure as hell does. He was in the thick of the fighting to free Mars. The tunnel wars there were even nastier than the block fighting on Luna. Even the Obsidians don’t sing songs of their victories in the tunnels. The Rat War, they call it. Over the course of three years, Dancer personally liberated over a hundred mines with the Sons of Ares. If Fitchner is the father of the Rising, it’d be fair to call Dancer the favorite uncle, despite the dissolution of the Sons of Ares.

You can take meds, I say. Most of the vets do.

"Psych meds? I don’t need Yellow synthetics. I’m a Red of Faran. My wits are damn sure more important than a dry bed. On that we agree. Even though he’s my wife’s main opposition in the Senate, and thereby mine, he’s still as dear to me as my own family. Only when Mars and her moons were declared free did Dancer give up the gun and take up the senatorial toga to found the Vox Populi, the Voice of the People," a socialist lowColor party to counter what he saw as undue Gold influence over the Republic. It’s a bloodydamn thorn in my boots every time he gives a speech on proportional representation. If he had his way, there’d be five hundred lowColor senators to every Gold senator. Good math. Bad reality.

Still, must be good to feel grass under your boots instead of sand and metal, he says softly. Must be good to be home.

It is. I hesitate and look out at the rocky shore below. Gets harder every time. To come back. You’d think I look forward to it, but…I don’t know. I dread it in a way. Every time Pax grows a centimeter, it feels like an indictment against me for not being there to see it. I pick a loose thread impatiently. Not to mention the longer I spend here, the more time the Ash Lord has to prepare Venus, and the longer this all stretches out.

His face hardens at the mention of the war. And how long do you think this will…stretch out?

That depends, doesn’t it? I ask. You’re the only thing standing in my way of getting the men I need to end this.

That’s always your answer. Isn’t it? More men. He sighs. I’m the mouth of the Vox Populi, not the brain.

You know, Dancer, humility isn’t always a virtue.

You disobeyed the Senate, he says flatly. We did not give you permission to launch an Iron Rain. We preached caution and—

I won, didn’t I?

This isn’t the Sons of Ares any longer, much as you and I both wish it were. Virginia and her Optimates were content to let you run roughshod over the Senate, but the people are learning just how strong their voice is. He steps close to me. Still, they revere you.

Not all of them.

Please. You’ve got cults that say prayers in your name. Who else has that?

Ragnar. I hesitate. And Lysander au Lune.

The line of Silenius died with Octavia. You were a fool to let that boy go, but if he was alive we’d know it. He got swallowed up by the war just like the rest of them. That leaves only you. The people love you, Darrow. You can’t abuse that love. Whatever you do, you set an example. So if you don’t follow the law, why should our Imperators, our Governors? Why should anyone else? How are we supposed to govern if you go off and do whatever you damn well please, like you’re a— He catches himself.

A Gold.

You know what I mean. The Senate was elected. You were not.

I do what’s necessary. You and I always have. But the rest of them, they do what gets them reelected. Why should I listen to them? I smile at him. Maybe you want an apology. Will that get me the men I need?

It may be too late for apologies.

I raise an eyebrow. I wish I could say his coldness is alien to me, but that bond between us has never been the same since he learned how I bought my peace with Romulus. I gave Romulus the Sons of Ares. Those were Dancer’s men I left to die on the Rim. The guilt I felt for that defined our relationship for years, made me desperate for his approval. I thought if I could destroy the Ash Lord, I could amend the horror I consigned those men and women to. Nothing has been amended. Nothing will be. And it breaks my heart to know Dancer will never love me again the way I love him.

Are we threatening each other now, Dancer? Thought you and I were beyond that. We started this together.

Aye. We did. I care for you as if you were my own blood. Have ever since you came to me covered in dirt, no taller than my nose. But even you have to follow the laws of the Republic you helped build. Because when the law is not obeyed, the ground is fertile for tyrants.

I sigh. You’ve been reading again.

Damn right. The Golds hoarded our history so they could pretend they owned it. It’s my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind, being led around by my nose.

No one is leading you around by your nose.

He snorts his disagreement. When I was a soldier, I watched as your wife gave pardons to murderers, to slavers, and I bore it because I was told it was necessary to win the war. I watch now as our people live fifteen to a room with scraps for food, rags for healthcare, while the highColor aristocracy live in towers, and I bear it because I’m told it is necessary to win the war. I’ll be damned if I sit back and watch another tyrant replace the one we left behind because it is necessary to win the fucking war.

Spare me the speeches, man. My wife’s no tyrant. It was her idea to diminish the strength of the Sovereign in the New Compact. Her choice to give that strength to the Senate. She helped give our people a voice. You think that was convenient for her? You think that’s what a tyrant would do?

He fixes me with hard eyes. I wasn’t talking about her.

I see.

I remember when you told me I was a good man who’d have to do bad things, I say. Your stomach go soft? Or have you spent so much time with politicians that you’ve forgotten what the enemy looks like? Usually they’re about seven foot tall, wear a big Pyramid badge, oh, and they’ve got Red blood all over their hands.

And so do you, he says. One million was the total loss, wasn’t it? One million for Mercury. You might be willing to bear that. But the rest of us tire of the weight. I know the Obsidians do. I know I do.

So that leaves us at an impasse.

It does. You’re my friend, he says, voice heavy with emotion. You will always be my friend. I won’t put a dagger in your back. But I will stand up to you. I will do what is right.

And so will I. I put out my hand. He takes it and lingers for a moment before walking down the path. He turns before it bends into the trees. Is there something you’re not telling me, Darrow? If there is, now is the time. When it’s between just us friends.

I’ve no secrets from you, I say, wishing it were true, wishing he believed me. Wishing he were still the leader of the Sons of Ares, so we could bear our secrets together like we once did. Sadly, not all adversaries are enemies.

He turns and limps back to the garden to say farewell to my mother. They embrace and he makes his way to the southern landing pads where his Warden escorts wait. He takes a white wool toga from one and puts it on over his shirt before he goes up the ramp.

What did he want? Sevro asks.

What do all politicians want?

Prostitutes.

Control.

He knows about the emissaries?

He couldn’t.

Sevro watches Dancer’s wool toga billow in the wind as he boards his shuttle. I liked the bastard better in armor.

So did I.

3 Darrow The Fantasy

DINNER IS SERVED SHORTLY AFTER Daxo and Mustang arrive from Hyperion with my brother Kieran and niece, Rhonna. We eat at a long wooden table covered with candles and hearty provincial Martian dishes spiced with curry and cardamom. Sevro, swarmed by his daughters, makes faces at them as they eat. But when the air cracks with a sonic boom, he bolts upright, looks at the sky, and runs off into the house, urging his children to stay put. He returns a whole half an hour later arm in arm with his wife, hair a mess, two jacket buttons missing, touching a white napkin to a bloodied, split lip. My old friend Victra, immaculate in a high-collared green jacket threaded with gemstones, beams devilishly across the patio at me. She’s seven months pregnant with their fourth daughter. Well, if it isn’t the Reaper in the leathery flesh. Apologies, my goodman. I’m dreadfully late.

Her long legs cover the distance in three strides.

I greet her with a hug. She squeezes my butt hard enough to make me jump. She kisses Mustang on the head and slides into a chair, dominating the table. Hello, gloomy one, she says to Electra. She looks at young Pax and Baldur, who’ve been huddled conspiratorially at the far end of the table. Both boys blush furiously. Will one of you handsome lads pour Aunty Victra some juice? She’s had a hellish day. They scramble over one another to be the first to grab the pitcher. Baldur wins, and, pleased as a peacock, the quiet Obsidian lad solemnly pours Victra a towering glass. Damnable mechanics union is on strike again. I’ve got docks full of freight that’s ready to move, but the little bastards got all spiced up by a Vox Populi mouthpiece and took the power couplings out of more than half the ships in my Luna food haulers and hid them.

What do they want? Mustang asks.

Aside from the moon to starve? Higher wages, better living conditions…the usual tripe. They say it’s too expensive to live on Luna with their wages. Well, there’s plenty of room on Earth!

How ungrateful of the unwashed peasants, my mother says.

I detect your sarcasm, Deanna, and I’m choosing to ignore it in honor of our recently returned heroes. There will be enough debate later in the week. Anyway, I’m practically a saint. Mother would have sent Grays in to crack their ungrateful skulls. Thank Jove the tinmen still bloody any Vox they see.

It’s their right to bargain collectively, Mustang says, reaching down to wipe a bit of hummus off the face of Sevro’s youngest, Diana. Written in ink in the New Compact.

Yes, of course it is. Unions are the heart of fair labor, Victra mutters. It’s the only thing Quicksilver and I agree upon.

Mustang smiles. Better. You’re a paragon of the Republic once again.

You only just missed Dancer, Sevro says.

I thought it reeked of self-righteousness. Victra goes to sip her juice and jumps in surprise. Baldur still stands at her side, smiling a bit too earnestly. Oh, you’re still here. Begone, creature. She kisses her fingers and then presses them to Baldur’s cheek, pushing him away. He goes, drifting on air back to my envious son.

Afterwards, as the children go off into the vineyard to play, we retire to the back grotto. My family, those by blood and by choice, surround me. For the first time in over a year, I feel peace settling into me. My wife puts her feet in my lap and instructs me to rub them.

I think Pax is in love with you, Victra, Mustang laughs as Daxo pours her a glass of wine. His hands dwarf the bottle. A taller man than I am, he has difficulty sitting in his chair and keeps accidentally kicking my shins under the table. Kieran and his wife, Dio, hold hands on a bench by the fire. When I was younger, I remember thinking how much she looked like Eo. But now, as time passes, the shadow of my wife’s face fades and I see only the woman who is the center of my brother’s being. She lurches forward suddenly, away from a shower of embers as Niobe dumps another log on the flames. Thraxa sits off in the corner, furtively lighting a burner.

Well, Pax could have worse an idol than his godmother, Victra says, eyeing her husband, who is picking his teeth with a splinter of wood he’s pried from the outdoor table. She pushes him with her foot. That’s grotesque. Stop.

Sorry.

Yet you’re not stopping.

Bit of gristle, my love. He turns like he’s throwing the splinter away, but keeps picking. Got it, he says gloomily. Instead of throwing the salvaged gristle to the side, he chews on it and swallows. Beef.

Beef? Mustang looks back at the table. We had chicken and lamb.

Sevro frowns. Odd. Kieran, when did we last have beef?

At the Howler dinner, three days ago. Noses wrinkle around the table.

Sevro chuckles to himself. Then it was well aged.

Daxo shakes his head and continues sketching angels for Diana, who sits on his lap admiring the man’s work. He’s no fool with a razor, but his true art is made with a stylus. Victra looks helplessly at Mustang over her juice, despairing of her husband. Proof, my dear, that love is blind.

Mickey can fix that face if you’re tired of looking at it, I say.

Good luck. You’d have to pry the decadent sprite away from his laboratory, Daxo says. The bald man considers Diana’s addition of a cruelly barbed trident to the angel he’s drawn. Not to mention his admirers. He brought quite the menagerie to the Opera last September. It was a bit like a Hieronymus Bosch painting come alive. One of them was even an actress. Can you imagine? he asks Mustang. Your father would have chewed through his cheek to see lowColors sitting in the Elorian.

He’s not the only one, Victra says. Too much new money these days. Quicksilver’s friends. She shivers.

Well, money doesn’t buy culture, does it? Daxo replies.

Not at all, my goodman. Not at all.

As the night deepens, the orange fingers of the slow sunset thread their way through the trees. I let go of the strain in my shoulders and sink deeper into my cup, listening to my friends chatter and joke while little blue bugs flicker and stab violent light into the late summer twilight. The trees rustle beyond the terrace; the shouts of children come from the grounds as they play night games. The blistering sand seas of Mercury seem so far away now. The stench of war so remote in my mind they are little more than shards of half-forgotten dreams.

This is how life should be.

This peace. This laughter.

But even now I feel it slipping through my fingers like that faraway sand. I sense the House Augustus Lionguards out in the darkness of the forest, watching the sky, the shadows, helping us stay inside the fantasy a moment longer. Mustang catches my eye and nods toward the door.

Forcing myself to part ways from my friends as the Telemanuses give a rousing, drunken rendition of their family’s song, The Fox of Summerfall, I follow several minutes after Mustang disappears into the main house. The manor halls here are older even than those of the Citadel of Light. History is the mortar of the place. Relics from older ages adorn walls, festoon shelves. Octavia called this place home as a child. Her essence lingers in the rafters and the attic and the gardens, as do those of her ancestors and child. It is where Lysander would have played long before his path crossed mine. I feel the imprint the Lunes have left on the home. At first I thought it strange living in the house of my greatest enemy, but in all humanity, who knew the burdens Mustang and I face as well as Octavia? In life, I loathed her. In death, I understand her.

The scent of my wife reaches me before the sight of her. Our room is warm and the door shudders shut behind me on a rusted metal latch. A bottle of wine is open on the table beside the fireplace, where eagles and crescent moons of House Lune are carved into the stone corbels. Mustang’s slippers lie discarded on the floor. The ring of her father and my House Mars ring rest on the table beside her datapad, which flashes away with new messages.

She’s spooled herself into a chair on our veranda like a bit of golden yarn, reading the dog-eared book of Shelley’s poetry Roque gave her years ago during their summer of opera and art in Agea, after the Institute. She doesn’t look up as I approach. I stand behind her, considering better of speaking, and slide a hand through her hair. I knead my thumbs into the muscles of her neck and back. Her proud shoulders relent against my fingers and she turns her book over in her lap. Sharing a life threads more than flesh and blood together. It weaves her memories in and around and through mine.

The more I know of her, the more I share of her, the more I love her in a way the boy I used to be never knew how to love. Eo was a flame, dancing against the wind. I tried to catch her. Tried to hold her. But she was never meant to be held.

My wife is not as fickle as a flame. She is an ocean. I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides. And that is more than enough.

I lower my lips to her neck and taste the alcohol and sandalwood of her perfume. I breathe slow and easy, feeling the lightness of love and the wordless unspooling of the sea of space that kept us apart. Impossible, it seems, that we were ever so distant. That there was ever a time where she existed and I was not with her. Everything that she is, every scent, taste, touch, makes me know I am home. She reaches up, dragging her slender fingers through my hair. I missed you, I say.

What’s not to miss? she asks, giving me a sly smile. I move to sit with her on the chaise, but she clucks her tongue. You’re not done yet. Keep rubbing, Imperator. Your Sovereign commands it.

I think power’s gone to your head. She glances up at me. Yes, ma’am. I continue massaging her neck.

I’m drunk, she mutters. I can already feel the hangover.

Thraxa’s good at making it feel like a moral obligation to keep pace.

Ten credits says we have to scrape Sevro off the patio tomorrow.

Poor Goblin. All spirit, no body mass.

She laughs. "I put him and Victra in the west wing so we can actually get some sleep. Last

Reviews for Iron Gold

[rena613 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great Continuation

It's really great to be with these characters again. The first trilogy ended with hope: that there will now be a more fair and just system of government. Everything should be all peaceful now, right? Well, not exactly. This book continues 10 years after the last book. So really there's been plenty of time to make things work. But there's still fighting and war and lots of politics -- it's not easy making a new government.


We have our favorites from before (Darrow, Virginia, Sevro, etc.) but this time there are new characters who get their point of view. I loved seeing how the "lowly" ones view their new leadership. Not surprising they have different opinions on how wonderful they are! We're also introduced to Darrow's son Pax and Sevro's daughter Electra. I loved reading about these kids.


The tech is fun to read about. But really, 1000 years in the future there won't be anything resembling what we have now. I know it's hard to imagine what these advancements would be like, but I feel it should be much more than this. But it's still interesting.


The author is a great writer, and I love reading his books. Can't wait for the next.

[hskey-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Significantly better than the previous three, I was surprised to see the original trilogy be far better rated because Iron Gold seems like a far more interesting story and more mature storytelling from Brown. I still think he bit off way more than he could chew and there are a hundred characters who all seem like Gold Knights of something, or family members of some character I totally forgot about from book 2, but aside from that this was a thrill to read.

The additions of Ephraim, Lysander and Lyria completely open up the world and tells a story from a far more interesting, detailed and compelling viewpoints. The fallout from the original Rising is probably the most interesting part of the story. When it goes back to Darrow and his usual fighting I sort of glazed over - it's still entertaining to read, but I really can't tell if this is fantasy or sci-fi when I'm reading above another seven foot Adonis swinging a battle axe through plasma armor or something.

It's bombastic and brash and cheesy at times, but still a massively fun read and I'll be continuing on the series for sure.

[jazzbird61 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't think there was much to add to the story, but after finishing another solid entry--apparently I was wrong!

[deslivres5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This Red Riding saga is definitely in space opera territory now!
The shifting alliances, the scheming, the new characters joining old ones in the fray. Loved it!

[ahs7wolfy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Continuation of the Red Rising saga set 10 years later. Darrow/Reaper is in trouble. In an attempt to bring an end to the war against the Golds that are still holding out he has disobeyed an order from the senate and although it brought him a great victory it was at a high cost. Only the Ash Lord remains to stand against the new democratic order but will Darrow remain free to see the turmoil brought to a close?

Although this is not the best book in the series I do quite like some of the new characters. This is much more of an ensemble piece than the previous books and has several viewpoints, as we not only follow Darrow but also Lysander (the former emperor’s grandson), Lyra (a young Red who starts off languishing in a freedom camp) and Ephraim (a thief who may have got in over his head). While the original trilogy started out as YA I think this is aimed at a more adult reader. Still enjoyable enough to stick with the series and will pick up the next book(s) at some point.

[jamestomasino · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The main characters from season 1 spend most of this book whining and crying. The new ones are interesting and give a different dimension to the story but don't inspire. It landed flat compared to the previous books. I may read the next for completion sake.

[mrnattania72 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What can I say, other than so not start the series with this book. You will be lost. But having fawned over the last three books, I was ready and enthusiastically engulfed with this book. What’s new is the Multi-POV, which has three storylines that will soon be meshed into one huge plot. I loved the last few chapters, but Legolas is my favorite character - LOVE HER !!

[dantarlin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the 4th book in the Red Rising series, a story that seemed quite finished after the original trilogy. But of course all histories continue, even after successful revolutions, so I guess there's no reason not to revisit this universe.

And Pierce Brown doesn't shrink from the likely results of his story 10 years later: Darrow has continued to fight the war, which wasn't actually over with the defeat and death of the Sovereign and her henchmen and women. Many powerful Golds remain, in the Core on Venus that has yet to be conquered, and also in the Rim where there is a truce.

The story is very complex, with lots of characters- too many actually. One problem with continuing the story in a plausible way is that the story gets bigger and bigger- this feels realistic to me, but confusing for the story.

We follow Darrow, who is on the run from his own government (led by his own wife!) after committing war crimes in his assault on Mercury. He is hatching a plan to finish the war despite the opposition of the peaceniks of the Republic who want to sue for peace. Separately, we have the old Sovereign's grandson Lysander, who is wandering the asteroid belt with Cassius for some reason, and gets embroiled in a political coup in the Rim. A third thread follows Lyria, a young Red woman fleeing Mars after her family is massacred, under the protection of the Telamanus family. Finally, a fourth thread follows Ephraim, a Brown thief who is forced to plan an operation for a powerful crime syndicate that will impact the other stories.

It's a lot to take in. There are new characters, old characters, and minor characters from earlier books who are now major- it's too much going on.

But the action remains good, and the writing style remains riveting- a page turner.

[ainjel-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is one question that haunts this novel: what happens to a man after he's become a legend?

This is a novel about the death of a hero.

Okay so. Don't get me wrong. This is a great book, but it is nothing compared to the ones that came before. I find the story gets weaker with each book Brown writes, but there's so much potential here. It's quite possible that the story to come is going to be even better than the one that proceeded... if the cards are played right.

I'm amazed at how cliched elements are turned around and used in ways that make them feel surprising and fresh. Most of the twists are things I saw coming, or could imagine happening in a political scifi story like this one, yet when they happen, I feel like the ground is shaking beneath me. The story is a good one, but it's mellow and kind of slow. I didn't feel the urgency, or the desire to continue reading that I felt for the other books. There was no "oh my god, I have to read the last 100 pages all at once" feeling because even the ending feels slow. Yet, you can see the tensions building and you KNOW the story is only just getting started.

I liked the new characters but I found the multiple perspectives took away from the story: with such a slow plot, I had already forgotten what X character was up to by the time we returned to their chapter again. However, I loved loved LOVED how each of these characters hated or had lost faith in The Reaper for their own personal reasons... Darrow included.

Darrow in this book is different because this is the story of a man who is torn between the man he wants to be, and the man he is. That is the true conflict of the story, and its a conflict the other characters feel the effects of. By the end, you might hate Darrow a little bit, but only because you realize that his ending was really a return to his beginning.

This is the story of a death of a man.

[dgrachel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I hardly know where to begin. Brown switches from the single first person POV he used in the original trilogy, to four POV narrators. This gives a much wider scope to the story. There are some great new characters and I am very grateful to Brown for not indiscriminately killing off original characters just for the heck of it (a la GRRM). Yes, there’s a body count, and it’s high. However, the deaths we do see make sense, even though they may be painful.

I spent most of the book with my heart in my throat, nervous and nauseated. The ending left me frustrated with Darrow, crying, and inches from tossing my book across the room. This seems to be Brown’s preferred method of ending, so I’m not surprised. I expect to be equally horrified and traumatized by Dark Age and can only hope that the third book of this second trilogy has as much hope at the end of it as Morning Star.

[verkruissen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You know when you read a book that's so good you do one of two things, devour it in one sitting or try to pace yourself because you already cannot stand the thought of it ending? I was the latter. Ever since I read Pierce Brown's first book "Red Rising" I have been obsessed with this series. I think it may have actually taken the place of my first science fiction love, "Dune" by Frank Herbert. This man is an absolute poet with the way he uses words. I would get this feeling in my chest of pure emotion that made me feel as if I were to burst out cheering or crying.
Needless to say, I loved this book. I literally screeched at work when I got the email that I got an ARC of "Iron Gold", and I work in a public library ;)
This story takes up 10 years into the rebellion and Darrow and the remnants of his Howlers have gone against the wishes of the government led by his wife Mustang in a last attempt to end the battle that has raged for years. The story is also told from the point of view of three other characters. One is a new character, a young girl by the name of Lyria. Her family has been rescued from the mines of Mars only to live in a refugee camp forgotten by their saviors. Ephraim, survivor of the original rising, he makes his way through life as a smuggler but will he get drawn into something far bigger than he can imagine? And lastly, Lysander, the heir to the throne of the empire. His grandmother was Octavia au Lune, the Sovereign of the Society. He has been hiding from his birthright but his past may have caught up him anyways.
This book was, as I knew it would be, incredible. I still recommend the Red Rising Trilogy to anyone not fortunate enough to have read them. It will definitely be part of my all time favorite book series.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ten years after the Red Rising trilogy plot ends, this new book revisit our old friends. This time we see the story unfold from four POVs; a red named Lyria, gold heir to the throne Lysander, Holliday’s brother-in-law Ephraim, and of course Darrow.

The novel tackles the impact war has on everyone from the soldiers who fight it to the orphaned children it leaves behind. It was bleak, but good.

“I suppose that is what every man must tell himself in war. That there will be an end, and when it is done, enough of himself will remain. Enough to be a father. A brother. A lover. But we know it isn’t true. Don’t we, Darrow? War eats the victors last.”

“I know it may be impossible to believe now, when everything is dark and broken, but you will survive this pain, little one. Pain is a memory. You will live and you will struggle and you will find joy.”

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I LOVE this series. It is the perfect epic fantasy series with flawed heroes placed in impossibly difficult situations. I recommend this to anyone who loves spectacular epic struggles with sacrifice, honor, treachery all mixed in. Can't wait for the next book!

[nbmars · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Note: Some spoilers for the Red Rising trilogy

Iron Gold is a new trilogy that follows the story of Pierce Brown’s immensely popular and appealing Red Rising trilogy, picking up ten years later.

The first trilogy began with Red Rising and continued with Golden Son followed by Morning Star.

The main premise was the existence of a solar-system-wide hegemony of one race (the “Golds”) based on a scaffolding of lies promulgated through propaganda and socialization; the use of violence; and the cultivation of prejudice and internecine conflict among the lower orders. But one man, hand-picked to lead a revolution from below, determined to tear that scaffolding down. That man is Darrow, who has come to be known throughout the solar system as The Reaper.

Darrow’s goal wasn’t just to tear down the corrupt ruling autocrats. An idealist, he had a vision of a better world, and a belief that people just want to be valued and not feel alone in the world. Some people responded to his message with hope, but others were too jaded, greedy for wealth or power, or evil. Darrow attempted to keep to the high ground, but when this new story begins, Darrow himself has become corrupted.

The war for power in the Solar System has continued with the forces for change and equality battling those who want to restore the old order. Some 200 million lives have been lost so far. This is twice the number killed by the casualties caused when the Golds established their rule. But the conflict continues.

There are three new narrators in this book besides Darrow, now 33. They provide new lenses through which to view Darrow and the Republic he helped to establish.

Lyria, 18, is a Red from Mars who is disillusioned by the supposed liberation. She and her family eke out the bare bones of existence in a “Gamma” refugee camp. Yes, they were rescued from a life of slavery, but then they were abandoned by the Republic. The Red Hand, a terrorist marauder group, has a vendetta against the previously privileged (by relative standards) Gammas, and Lyria and her blind nephew Liam are the only ones to escape alive from a Red Hand attack. The forces of the Republic finally arrive to help, albeit a little too late for almost everybody. But because Lyria saves the life of Gold, Kavax au Telemanus, during the rescue, he accedes to her request to take her and Liam off the planet and back with him to the moon.

Ephraim, 46, is a freelancer in the capital city who, along with a small team, performs heists on contract. He was previously romantically involved with a man from the original trilogy who was killed, so he avoids any “legitimate work” with the Republic because it is too painful for him to be part of the world of his former lover. But unfortunately, Ephraim and his team are a bit too successful at crime, and are coerced into participating into “the heist of the century.” It goes against everything Ephraim believes in, but his life, and the lives of his team, are on the line.

Lysander au Lune, 20, is the grandson of the former Sovereign Octavia. He was groomed by Octavia to be her successor. During Octavia’s overthrow, Lysander was rescued from slaughter by Cassius au Bellona, although Cassius is also the one who killed Octavia. With mixed emotions, Lysander now regards him as his teacher and protector. The two travel through the “backwater” of the galaxy helping those who need it. It is the way Cassius is trying to get redemption.

Now that he is older, Lysander feels he has “outgrown” Cassius, finding Cassius hypocritically sanctimonious. Furthermore, he retains the racist feeling of Gold superiority and the desire for revenge against Darrow for taking away his grandmother’s power. In his arrogance, he envisions himself as one day being a leader that Cassius would follow, rather than the reverse.

Lysander must have been reading the Dune series at one point, because he often needs to invoke the litany against fear taught to him by his grandmother. In Dune, Paul Atreides often recited the litany his mother taught him:

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Lysander uses a similar mantra:

"Do not let fear touch you.
Fear is the torrent.
The raging river.
To fight it is to break and drown.
But to stand astride is to see it, feel it, and use its course for your own whims.”

And Lysander in fact has plenty to fear when he and Cassius are captured by hostile forces out in the Rim. Both Lysander and Cassius need to conceal their identities, but they inadvertently get caught in the middle of a power struggle in which exposure is probable. Lysander has his head turned by the daughter of the rulers, and moreover repeatedly ignores Cassius’s advice about how to handle the situation. [He seems not to notice that he keeps saying to himself “Cassius is right, yet again.”] In spite of being wrong over and over again, he never lets go of his high opinion of himself. Lysander is young, but thinks he knows everything.

Meanwhile, Darrow is barely home from previous battles when he tells his wife and son Pax he has to leave again. Venus still is controlled by “the Ash Lord,” and Darrow fears they won’t be safe until the Ash Lord is destroyed. The Senate, more interested in peace, tries to stop him. Darrow escapes, but in the process, he kills his friend, a hero of the Republic. Darrow is now considered a villain, by no one more than he himself. Further, because he has left his son again, he also feels like a bad father, not to mention a bad husband. But he is convinced he is doing the right thing.

Discussion: The characters of this new trilogy are full of faults. The “good guys” think nothing of raining down death and destruction in pursuit of the goal of “peace.” Darrow seems incapable of gauging reality anymore, as his cohort Sevro says:

“Well, slag me sideways. You really are drunk on your own myth, aren’t you? . . . You think you’re a god. You can’t die.”

Darrow learns just how right Sevro is, and how disastrous his own hubris has been for everyone. His response to this epiphany is perhaps quintessential Darrow.

Note: The Red Rising trilogy was completed two years ago. Those books were best read one right after another because of the large dramatis personae and the changing alliances among all of the parties. This new series has an abbreviated list of characters at the beginning, but if you can’t remember the first trilogy well, you will still be at sea a great deal of the time. I regretted not rereading the whole first series before tackling this new book. I would not recommend starting it without reading or rereading the Red Rising trilogy first.

Evaluation: This fantasy series features all the great and timeless epic themes of war, power, fear, hope, family, loyalty. The heroes of the first books have acquired warts, but fans of the first trilogy will find this to be essential reading.

[autumnlupin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved you before I ever met you. I will love you until the sun dies. And when it does,
I will love you in the darkness.

two pages from the end, I let out a full sob. two pages from the end, I felt my heart crack into an infinite number of fragments yet again. I lay the remains of my shattered heart at his feet, and can only pray he grants me mercy, all well knowing he undoubtedly will not.

it all sounds really dramatic, but I don't think an author has fully broken my heart into has many pieces as Pierce Brown has, and I cried like a baby through the entirety of the final Harry Potter novel. His books are stellar, and this one is no exception. I'll be waiting on tenterhooks and in pain for the next one.

[renbedell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Life isn't so simple anymore for Darrow anymore. He has new responsibilities and peace isn't as easy as he thinks it would be. This new series set in in the aftermath of the Red Rising trilogy follows Darrow and three other protagonist as they try to navigate the new world. The writing is great as usual, although much less action and more politics. Pierce Brown seems to have knack for tension, which really shines in this book, but makes the slow parts feel more slow. Seeing the world through three other POVs is nice and refreshing at times. It is difficult though with having different narrators for each voice as I have become use to certain characters portrayal by Tim Gerard Reynolds. Overall a great book, but not as good as the original Red Rising. I'm excited to be back in this world though!

[ray_-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I...
I can't even gather my thoughts right now

Review:
If you thought Golden Son and Morning Star were heartbreaking, then buckle up boyo, you're in for one hell of a ride with Iron Gold!

Iron Gold is set 10 years after the end of Morning Star, we get to see the aftermath of the Rising.
The story is told from 4 points of view;

Darrow of Lykos (Reaper): The once hero and savior of the world is now viewed as a devil. Those he once called his friends are now conspiring against him. Those who once cherished him are now rioting against him.
The boy who saved the world, is now viewed as its breaker. . .


Lyria of Lagalos: a low Red from the mines of Lagalos, The Republic pulled her and her family out of the mines and put them in a camp, promising them a better future. 10 years later, she is still in the camp and is suffering the rejection and hatred of her own color because she was a Gamma.

Ephiraim Ti Horn: Remember Trigg? No? He was Holliday's brother who helped break Darrow out of The Jackal's claws.
Ephiraim is a gray, the husband of the late Trigg Ti Nakamura, once a son of Ares, now a criminal.

Lysander Au Lune: The grandson of Lorn Au Arcos and the previous sovereign Octavia Au Lune. Barely over 10 when his grandmother was murdered by The Rising, young Lysander was taken care of by Cassius Au Bellona, and is now a 20 years old young man, travelling the galaxy with his mentor and brother, Cassius.


This book was one hell of a ride! I was kinda dreading the whole idea of having 4 points of views, but I must admit, it was amazing!
It was so bloodydamn well written as usual, and of course it was heartbreaking.
At this point it's like, if you don't cry at least four times you can't really call it a Pierce Brown book.

I loved the dynamic of the world, and how those four characters which were so different from each other made sense and their stories somehow collided (or are about to collide) .

It was really amazing to see how Pierce took this world that he built throughout three books, and just destroyed it only to build it again. I takes a lot for an author to write about flaws in what was the ultimate goal in his first 3 books, and this says a lot about how much of a great author he is.

It is really hard for me to review books I adore so I'm just gonna say
If you haven't read this series yet what on earth are you doing with your life???
GO READ IT NOW.


I refuse to believe that Cassius is dead.
Unless we get an actual body, he is still alive and no one -not even Pierce himself- can convince me otherwise.

One more thing:

PAX AU TELEMANUS!

[vinjii-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am always worried when I pick up a sequel to a beloved series. Worried I might be disappointed or that something terrible could happen to some of my favourite fictional characters.

Halfway through Iron Gold a certain disappointment did start to seep through. I felt like I wasn't connecting with the book and the characters. Thankfully, the second half of the book grabbed me and by the end I was excited to read more.

A similar thing happened with Red Rising. I liked it but didn't love it, and then...Golden Son blew my mind.

Iron Gold takes place ten years after Red Rising and is told from the point of view of four characters and not just Darrow like Red Rising. At first I didn't really care much for the other characters, and because the first half is mostly set-up and moves considerably slower than the second half it wasn't until much later that I discovered that I was suddenly attached to everyone.

Pierce Brown's writing is elegant. He excels at fast-paced action scenes and can really crush your heart with emotional moments.

If you liked the Red Rising series don't hesitate and give this one a try.